This is a lusty story [from a novel by Rafael Sabatini] of English buccaneers who plunder women and the Spanish Main with equal facility.

This is a lusty story [from a novel by Rafael Sabatini] of English buccaneers who plunder women and the Spanish Main with equal facility.

Some of the pirates reform, while the others meet their just deserts at sword’s end or the gallows. Thus chief pirate Laird Cregar, playing Henry Morgan, winds up as the honest governor of Jamaica; his chief aide (Tyrone Power) likewise turns pure, even winning the love of Maureen O’Hara, whom he previously tries to compromise; Thomas Mitchell also winds up a reformed pirate, while such brutes as George Sanders and Anthony Quinn, as a one-eyed scourge of the sea, become dead pirates.

Some of the film’s action stuff is of the cliff-hanger variety, but director Henry King keeps the fantasy pretty well in hand so that it doesn’t become too ludicrous. He paces the story well with the dialog bright and peppery.